SCHOOL NEWS
Bowie ISD continues crunching the budget numbers
By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonline.com
Crunching the numbers for the 2023-24 school year is a bit more complex this year as a Nov. 7 election will determine a new homestead exemption and school funding continues to be under debate in the legislature including some form of a voucher.
Bowie Independent School District Finance Director Paula Peterson offered school trustees a brief overview of some assumptions and actual numbers during a Thursday budget workshop
The certified property values she offered were $1,358,211,350, an increase of $124,918,615 above the prior year. This figure is slightly higher than the county chart from earlier in July, but it includes the small portions of BISD that go into Clay and Jack Counties.
She also provided several charts that gave revenue comparisons from the past nine years, fund balance, student/teacher ratio and refined average daily attendance used to calculate state funding.
The actual revenue for 2022 was $9,563,305.45 in maintenance and operation tax funds, $816,454.90 in the available school fund and $5,949,077 in foundation school funds. The district’s fund balance is $9,440,272 and the student/teacher ratio across the district is 12:6.
The refined ADA was 1,569 in 2018-19 and it was 1,498 in 2022-23 with 94-95% percent tax collection. Trustees asked if other districts are seeing similar declines in ADA or attendance in general. Enlow said yes.
Read the full story in the mid-week Bowie News.
By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonnline.com
Bowie Independent School District Trustees began plowing through the 2026-27 budget at its first workshop on Aug. 3.
The center of discussion was presentation of the salary study commissioned by the district through the Texas Association of School Boards. Laura Wurman of TASB explained how the data was gathered and developed into recommendations for the district.
Purpose of the study is to assess competitive pay levels for common jobs. Wurman said they analyses market data to determine where the district is at risk and identified priorities for pay system improvements.
Read the full story in the Thursday Bowie News.
Diana Calderon will join the Bowie High School staff as assistant principal in the new school year.
She comes to Bowie from Lake Dallas Elementary School where she served as assistant principal since 2024. Her prior positions include administrator at Decatur High School from 2022-2024, and English as a second language director at Ponder High School and Middle School from 2017 to 2022.
Calderon’s educational background began with a bachelor of business management in 2007 from the University of Phoenix. She earned her master degree in bilingual education from Southern Methodist University in 2018 and a master’s in educational leadership also in 2018.
The educator is working on her doctorate of educational leadership.
By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonline.com
New Bowie High School Principal Dean Johnson brings 15 years of experience as an educator to the campus and he is looking forward to settling down in his new town.
The 38-year-old comes to Bowie from Farmersville Independent School District where he was junior high principal since 2022 and prior to that he was assistant starting in 2019. In 2023 he was named Texas Association of Secondary School Personnel’s Region 10 Assistant Principal of the Year.
Born and raised in Sherman, Johnson always knew his career path was coaching/teaching. He followed in his mother’s footsteps as she worked 30-plus years as a high school math teacher. His sister is a middle school math teacher and her husband is a teacher/coach both at Bells ISD, along with a cousin who is elementary principal at Burkburnett.
And dad can’t be left out, Johnson said while his father did several jobs, for many years he drove a bus for Sherman ISD, including those athletic team trips.
“I would often go with him on those trips with the football team and at seven or eight years old you look up at the players. I also was a ball boy. My path was set early,” said the new principal.
Read the full feature in the Thursday Bowie News.
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